Gamism and Narrativism: Mutually Exclusive
Ron Edwards:
Hi Norm,
Two major points. (Also, my apologies in advance for the terseness. I'm definitely at the end of a toddler-heavy day.)
1. When I say esteem, it's not isolated. It's esteem about strategy and guts. So play which involves strategy and guts as a minor component but doesn't have the esteem about it; that's not Gamist. It might have esteem about something else, maybe. But if you have (i) esteem (ii) about (iii) strategy and guts, as the point-purpose-agenda of play, then you have Gamist play. All three, in that causal relationship.
2. Agenda should not be confused with motive, which I think both of you a're doing. I am not saying motives are uninvolved, but I am saying that consulting them causes problems. There are some pretty agonzing discussions back in the history of the Forge about that. Here, I'll say that in order to discuss Creative Agenda, we need to look at what is done around the table, socially and creatively, which is the clear and completely normal (i.e. not arcane or zen-like) reinforcement of one another's fun. Instead of saying, "H'm, why do I play, gee, I feel this, I feel that," look at what you and others actually did and do during a particular session or sequence of sessions. I think I demonstrated the utility of this approach in the Frostfolk and Rifts threads that I linked to in my earlier post, so those are probably the best references.
We've been through this "challenge" discussion about fifty times at the Forge, and it always goes 'round and 'round until the person understands that we're not talking about motive, and therefore nothing about "but I do it for X!" means anything to the discussion.
Best, Ron
P.S. I realized that I forgot to include the code for the relevant Exalted threads: Bumpy Exalted game, [More Abyssals] CA Clashes and holes in gamist systems.
chance.thirteen:
What an incredibly disapppointing answer. Why would you ask me to post my personal message to you just to give this answer? No, I don't actually need an answer.
Ron Edwards:
I'm answering Norm and your support to his post, and I'll get to your specific points when I can. Your previous post is not trivial and this thread is a fine place to work with it.
Please bear in mind that disappointing you or not disappointing you isn't my concern.
Best, Ron
Ron Edwards:
The following should mark a transition in this thread. Norm, we need to start this thing for real. I'll post in a bit to say how.
----
Here are the issues that go into chance.thirteen's point about strong Gamist design and Narrativist play. To summarize, we're talking about using a rules-set which does X really well but people may play it with priority Y. In fact, Once Upon a Time was an excellent example game, as anyone who's played it knows - you have to decide whether X or Y is really the point of play for a particular group and instance of play.
1. When I say "play agenda," it's not a "style." Style is trivial. It's like hats two different people might wear while doing the same basic thing, even if they can't stand each other's hats. This guy talks in character, that guy never does. This guy uses a gas grill, this guy only uses charcoal. They may claim to be profoundly different from one another but no one observing them could say that. Whether they could ever be compatible in some group activity is not fundamental to what they're doing, but simply individually up to them.
Agenda is seriously different. This guy raises hogs to put bows on them and to keep them as pets, and sell them as pets. This guy grills them and sells books about the recipes. They get together on the basis of being "big hog fans" and there is nothing they can do to reconcile what they want from pigs as a shared activity.*
2. Any rules set can be used for any Creative Agenda. So if you're talking about using, say, Rune as the rules set and you and I and a couple other people play it in some way which is aggressively Narrativist and non-problematic as such among us - yeah. Not only "can happen," but "does happen" all the time, all over the place.
In practice, certain rules in the set tend to get de-emphasized and even ignored, which is Drift. I played Rifts a long time ago, and personally Drifted it basically by ignoring danger to my character and the various point-reward systems. When Andreas (Settembrini) interviewed me about that, because he was surprised I'd played Rifts at all, he reacted essentially that I didn't understand Rifts and played it wrong. Whether that's "wrong," I can't say (and have never said so) - what it was, was Drifted-Risk for purposes of a Creative Agenda that I daresay was not only not well-supported by the textual rules, but possibly as far from the way Andreas plays it as one can get (which is well-supported by the rules).**
For a much more deliberate example, see my series of four threads about playing D&D 3.0/3.5 with a dedicated Narrativist Agenda; they're pretty long and elaborate. A search in Actual Play using my name and the terms "Christopher" and possibly "orc" will do the job. We Drifted the rules significantly and precisely, but I think it's also clear that we did indeed play D&D well within the rules margins that permit that label to say stuck on.
These points combine to say that Agendas are incompatible, and also that no rules-set prevents a given Agenda from being used/done (although many rules sets do not fully survive contact with certain Agendas).
This phrase of yours confuses me though.
Quote
My ongoing feeling is that many narrativist agendas are not positive or even neutral with regards to other styles of play, especially gamist play. Why do I think that? Because if you want to experience and enjoy the creation of a story, elements like rules, which sim and gamist play rely upon as almost unbendable agreements, can only be in the way.
I hardly know where to start with this, because read in one way, it's predicated on an absurd claim: that anyone who plays Gamist or Simulationist can't be making a story. That's silly; they do it all the time and have been doing so since the beginning of the hobby. Read in another way, it's a very solid statement that "experience and enjoy the creation of a story" as a highly specific priority (so specific that "address Premise" is the only defining feature) is not compatible with other agendas, and I agree with that. But the trouble with that second way is that its supportive clause - that prioritizing story creation of that kind is divorced from "rules." And that's even sillier than the first version of the whole statement. That's like going back to "roll vs. role" which is utter nonsense. No role-playing occurs without rules; free-form, for instance, relies entirely upon rules that pertain to speaking, narrating, and authorities of those things. Precise and powerful rules-sets which promote addressing Premise are thick on the ground at this late date. I can't imagine that anyone familiar with even the most general range of role-playing systems can say that "rules get in the way of making stories" with a straight face.
Chance, your first point about prioritizing one Agenda when using rules that primarily (and well) support another is a fascinating topic, and that's why I wanted you to post it publicly. But this last set of statements is like Martian talk. It can't possibly be correct as a whole, and the part which, when isolated and specified, can be correct is undermined by supportive text which itself can't be correct.
Best, Ron
* A potential problem with reading this analogy: I am not saying preferences in agenda are permanent descriptions of personality. In regarding to role-playing, I get all Gamist with one group and game, and get all Narrativist with another and another, and so on. The pig example leaves that issue out in order to focus on the activity itself.
** As a related point, Andreas assumed wrongly that I didn't understand that I was playing "off" Rifts. Of course I understood what I was doing. Playing Rifts in the way best supported by the rules was, in that particular instance of play, the last thing I wanted to do with my time.
Ron Edwards:
Whew. OK, with that done.
Norm, it's your thread. I went over your posts and I'm not sure whether you want to pursue it. For the record, I'd like to continue, based on a series of questions we can go through regarding that particular game. It'd be a lot like the Rifts and Frostfolk threads. Are you interested?
Best, Ron
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